DRAMATIS PERSONE ORSINO, Duke of Illyria. SEBASTIAN, brother to Viola. ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian. A Sea Captain, friend to Viola. VALENTINE, ****CURIO, gentlemen attending on the Duke. Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants. SCENE: A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it. TIME The time represented is three days, with an interval of three days between the first and second. Day 1. I. 1.-3. Interval of three days. 2. I. 4., 5.; II. 1.-3. 3. II. 4., 5; III., IV., V. But there are indications of a different scheme occupying three months (V. 1. 97, 101). Daniel, Trans. N. Shak. Soc 1877-79. INTRODUCTION John Man TWELFTH NIGHT was first printed in the Folio of Early Liter1623. Its history begins, for us, with the feast in Date. the hall of the Middle Temple, 2nd February 1602, when it was apparently first performed. ningham, an otherwise undistinguished law-student, described the performance in terms which leave no doubt of its identity :-'At our feast wee had a play called Twelue night or what you will, much like the commedy of errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni, a good practise in it to make the steward beleeue his Lady widdowe was in love with him by counterfayting a letter, as from his Lady, in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, etc. And then, when he came to practise, making him beleeue they tooke him to be mad.' The play thus described must have been comparatively new; it is incredible that the creation of Malvolio, in after years extraordinarily popular, should have already been familiar to the London stage when Manningham jotted down this essentially 'first-night' précis of his rôle. But there is no scrap of definite external evidence on the point; even Meres's omission (1598) of the play, in his well-known list of twelve Shakespearean pieces, does not quite decide that it had not yet been written, Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants. SCENE: A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it. TIME The time represented is three days, with an interval of three days between the first and second. Day 1. I. 1.-3. Interval of three days. 2. I. 4., 5.; II. 1.-3. 3. II. 4., 5; III., IV., V. But there are indications of a different scheme occupying three months (V. 1. 97, 101). Daniel, Trans. N. Shak. Soc 1877-79. INTRODUCTION TWELFTH NIGHT was first printed in the Folio of Early Liter1623. Its history begins, for us, with the feast in Date. the hall of the Middle Temple, 2nd February 1602, when it was apparently first performed. John Manningham, an otherwise undistinguished law-student, described the performance in terms which leave no doubt of its identity :—" At our feast wee had a play called Twelue night or what you will, much like the commedy of errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni, a good practise in it to make the steward beleeue his Lady widdowe was in love with him by counterfayting a letter, as from his Lady, in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, etc. And then, when he came to practise, making him beleeue they tooke him to be mad.' The play thus described must have been comparatively new; it is incredible that the creation of Malvolio, in after years extraordinarily popular, should have already been familiar to the London stage when Manningham jotted down this essentially 'first-night' précis of his rôle. But there is no scrap of definite external evidence on the point; even Meres's omission (1598) of the play, in his well-known list of twelve Shakespearean pieces, does not quite decide that it had not yet been written, |